index of selected series | prints

supernova study

My scholarship centers on Black women geographies—real, imagined, and lived experiences. This series supernova study, (2020) is a 29 unique varied edition print that renders a traditional African Fulani tribe hairstyle from an Afrofuturistic perspective.

By extracting parts of the letterpress print and collaging images and mappings of space and the natural world within the head and hairstyle, I call upon the African Diaspora’s continuum where traditions are mindfully re-shaped through the passage of time and Black womanhood is counter-mapped via an emic perspective.

tender: a sisterhood anthem

As an artist, I work within series and studies as it allows me to extensively explore techniques and questions within my body of work. During the quadruple pandemic (2020):  COVID-19, the uproar of institutionalized racism and state sanctioned violence on Black and Brown bodies, a declining economy, and natural disasters, I began a Black material culture study with combs. The comb has symbolized beauty, care and has diagnosed many Black women as tender headed or heavy handed.  I needed a praxis of care to live in during intense turmoil and the grief of losing a daughter in utero, Avery Rose, during the pandemic. I decided upon relief print lino-cut. Within my thought process, I believed that the act of carving the linoleum block would link my hand’s rememory to that of ancestors possibly carving a woodblock for traditional African combs. African combs are given in celebration and to mark an end, this duality of giving in times of joy or grief is an exploration of the continuity in caring for ourselves and others through the ebb and flow of life. 

This series acts as a visual song of praise—a communal harmony of sisters caring for themselves and one another, and our collective habits of being in relationship to the comb. The ongoing study will re-imagine 100 combs into an artist book.

to know each other’s languages are our own

On an odyssey to excavate my ancestry, I discovered that the matriarchal tales within my family of an Indigenous bloodline were true. My maternal tribe is somewhere in North America and Canada. In an effort to work out my feelings surrounding African and Indigenous tribes existing within me, where I had no trace outside of my cells, I began to weave through rememory. Weaving is a shared artistic practice within Indigenous and African culture. Now, these visual languages are my own. I am intertwining the two cultures, as a visual depiction, of my journey discovering the subaltern spaces within me.

notes from our mothers’ gardens

The first in a series of prints in homage to Black women who I have gleaned theory, process and inspiration from. Emma Amos is one of my favorite artists, art activists and educators. This print is a response to Emma’s call within several of her prints “Crown” (2002), “Miss Otis” (2002), “Take One” (1985-1987), “X Flag“ (1992) and her text “Some Do’s and Don'ts for Black Women Artists,” (1982). Alice Walker’s ovarian text In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens (1983), Robert Venturi and Susan Scott Brown’s “Notebook,” (1983) design and marginalia as fragmented text were expanded upon in this fine art print. I discussed this work in detail during a program for “Emma Amos: A Color Odyssey” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.